Healthy plant-based recipes full of good stuff whilst being free from refined sugars and wheat. The food blog is a space to kickstart your inner creativity!

Back when my photography wasn't up to much and I had no idea how to moderate shadows, and I actually thought that bright sunlight would actually be best. Ok, so they aren't that bad...I'm just my own worst critic. The new photos below aren't necessarily that much better either... maybe I was just having a bad day! :-)

Anyway, I digress.... so what's new? They look the same, they taste the same BUT these little babies are now gluten free!

I used my favourite GF combo of buckwheat and almonds to replace the spelt flour in the original version. I tested these cookies out on the Boy who I still see from time to time, he was a big lover of these cookies the first time around and so I knew he'd the perfect person to test out the new version..without telling him that I'd made any changes. They passed the test with flying colours... and now I'm being 'pestered' with text messages that simply say "more cookies?"

These cookies are of the melt-in-your-mouth crumbly sort, hence the chocolate shortbread title. I wouldn't go so far as to claim they are my healthiest recipe on my blog because they do use a lot of coconut butter, but we all know that coconut butter is one of the healthiest fats around, so all is good (as long as you don't eat the whole batch in a sitting!)

The mixture itself is super simple, the hardest part is achieving the right consistency to slice the roll of dough into rounds without it becoming too crumbly. I chilled the dough roll for 30 minutes or so to make the coconut butter more stable and it seemed to work well, but have a go and you'll so get a feel for what it needs. Worst case scenario you can do away with rolling a log and simple make balls with your fingers and flatten them onto a baking sheet... not so pretty this way but still pretty tasty.

Recipe: Chocolate shortbread

Makes 15-20 cookies

Ingredients

200g coconut butter

40g agave

40g rapadura (or other
granulated sweetener)

Scant ¼ tsp stevia

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 tsp ground chia with 2tbs
water

40g ground almonds

40g ready to cook polenta

50g cocoa powder

100g buckwheat flour*

50g arrowroot

Method

Melt coconut butter and mix
with wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients together and slowly add to the wet
ingredients until a thick but pliable dough is formed. Using your hand form the
dough into a cylinder approx. 6cm diameter and chill in the fridge for 30
minutes (may not be necessary if stable enough). Cut into 1cm thick rounds. Lay each slice
on a greased/lined baking sheet and bake for approx. 15 mins at 180C.

P.S 'Happy July 4th' to all those who will be celebrating, here in the UK we don't have an independence day, so it will simply be a regular day for me....

* for further guidance on making gluten free choices please see this post.

For tips and info on recipe measurement conversions, ingredients, substitutions and the methods behind how I do things.... check out my 'baking tips' tab at the top of the page.